Former NIB executive believed bogus account problem was ‘industry-wide’

A FORMER executive director of National Irish Bank, Barry Seymour, told the inspectors who investigated the affairs of NIB that he believed non-compliance problems within the bank related were “an industry-wide problem” with other banks similarly affected, the High Court heard yesterday.

However, Mr Seymour disagreed with the inspector’s finding in their report of July 2004 that he should have been aware, when he was in charge of the bank from 1994 to 1996, that there were widespread problems with bogus non-resident accounts in the bank. He said he would like to think that, at that time, NIB was “the one bank” which was attacking the non-compliance problem.

He said a November 1994 DIRT Team audit report did not use the word “bogus” in relation to non-resident accounts and also did not state that the problem was widespread within the bank. If he had seen that word, his approach might have been different he said. The word fictitious was referred to. He had put measures in place to tackle the problems of non-compliance.